While doing my daily roaming on Tumblr, I came across this picture. My first thought about this picture was that it looked amazing. While scrolling through the notes, the first few comments I read were about this picture was about how “make up does this to people” or “this is basically how every girl looks like”. Seriously? Has the society and the culture blinded you so much that you’d make a bias comment make up differences? I don’t understand how people can be so shallow that they can’t see the beauty from both sides of the face. Supposedly, because she wears make up, she’s ugly. Or because she doesn’t wear make up, she’s ugly. This world views such things in a black and white perspective. I say both sides of the face is gorgeous. Focusing on the left side, her make up radiates her beauty. In other words, it’s complimenting her facial features. Her skin gives off a warm glowing tone, her brows and lips are full, and her eye make up brings out her blue grey eyes. Focusing on the right side, everything is natural. There is no shame in the uneven skin tone. There is no shame in the bags and lines under her eyes. There is no shame in in her unfilled brows and her natural lip color. The beauty about this is that they are not flaws. We are brainwashed by the media and the culture about how to define beauty that we overlook what beauty really is. If you compared the two sides and said one side looked better than the other side, then I feel sorry for you. You truly don’t understand what makes both sides beautiful.
(Source: Flickr / laurazalenga)
These are some pictures from Kate Harding’s BMI Project. Click through for dozens more pictures. It is perfect illustration of how flawed the BMI system is. There is nothing wrong with ANY of the bodies shown in any of the pictures above. There is nothing wrong with your body either.
BMI does not tell you ANYTHING about your body.
BMI is not a barometer of health, of beauty, of self-esteem, or of happiness.
There is no such thing as a ‘healthy weight’.
Concentrate on how your body feels, not on how it’s defined on a flawed scale. Do not let anyone tell you you’re not healthy because you’re ‘over’ or ‘under’ a certain number.
Love,
Let's Talk About ED: Are Ultra-Curvy Celebrities Actually Helping Women Feel Body Positive? ⇢
While scary-skinny models airbrushed into oblivion aren’t helpful for women, to be honest, the recent boom of “curvy” women may not be either.
This isn’t the first time we’ve touched on the subject of the resurgence of ‘curves’. Editor Briana wrote about the “C” word some time ago, and…
“Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior.”
Anyone who has taken an introductory course in psychology has most likely read about these experiments carried out by B.F. Skinner. The context that I will focus on is are punishments in regard to mind and body habits.
Positive punishments occur when a behavior is followed by a stimulus which decreases the behavior itself. For example, hurting one’s self emotionally and/or physically after eating a large unhealthy meal.
Negative punishment involves a removal of a stimulus and the contingent response. An example would be restricting calories the day after that big meal.
Each of these involve just that- punishment. We all do it. We hurt ourselves and talk down to ourselves when we participate in an activity that we would not normally deem acceptable and healthy. Actions like this are not only detrimental to our bodies, but can either promote or continue negative thinking and damaged self-esteem.
Think about it- wouldn’t things be easier if you focused less on punishing yourself and more on rewarding yourself for things that you’ve done well? And if one day doesn’t turn out so well, there’s always another on the way. There is no reason to take our anger out on ourselves, even if it was our own faults. A better way is to look at what went wrong and look at how to fix it. That way, when you do things in a healthy way, such as eating, working out, etc., you can feel good about what you’ve done. And don’t forget to reward yourself! A hot bath, a night out with friends, a delicious healthy treat- you deserve it!
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If you feel insecure, you should watch this.
It goes for men too, even though this video is aimed towards women.
Oh my gosh, this is absolutely brilliant. She is brilliant. And so accurate.
And I agree with savasana, this applies to men too! Men are also objectified, men also face the same pressures that women do to look/act/be a certain way. Men are just as capable as women of succumbing to eating disorders.
So ladies and gents alike, I hope you watch this, and I hope that it makes you realize, or if you already know, I hope it reminds you, that you are beautiful the way you are. It’s okay to not look like celebrities do, because they don’t look like that either.
And the bottom line is that it is the content of your character that defines your beauty and worth, not whether or not you have pores. (That was a reference to the video.)
**Trigger warning: she talks about eating disorders.**
This was the most fabulous thing we watched in my cornerstones class last semester; the whole documentary is absolutely enlightening and everyone should watch it.
Think weight-related media are a byproduct of today’s society? Think again. They’ve always been there, perhaps not in the ways you’d think. A post on retronaut shows, in detail, several vintage weight gain advertisements. That’s right- weight GAIN. Look at the topics. They all focus on others’ perceptions of women who are thin and how to be a “glamour girl” by gaining weight. Here is evidence that SOCIETY dictates what is and isn’t attractive. Not doctors, not health experts. Media. Why has society let these advertisements continue? Because they sell, that’s why. We are a commercial world based on consumer demand. People spend so much time seeing the same things over and over: the same shape models of the era, the same advertisements, the same notion that they need to gain/lose weight. Even if it is not agreeable to us at first glance, the repetition conditions us to be influenced by it from a young age. It’s a natural response- but with the proper knowledge, you can be cognizant of what is around you and ignore the negative body messages! A true measure of strength is being able to not only identify what media are doing, but how to love yourself in a world that is forcing you to become someone else.
